Log in to JacketFlap

What is JacketFlap

JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans.Join now (it's free).

Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.

Specifically, I had a non-repeating line that ended with spiral and needed help. Lo and behold! The rhyme search turned up

Chiral.

On to Wikipedia, where, along with some impenetrable diagrams of molecules, I found THIS:

"Human hands are perhaps the most universally recognized example of chirality: the left hand is a non-superposable mirror image of the right hand; no matter how the two hands are oriented, it is impossible for all the major features of both hands to coincide."

Well, COOL. Our hands, although we think of them in pairs (like rhymes), they are, in reality, unmatchable. What a fitting subject for the villanelle, a poetic form built around the fiction that things can always be manipulated so they will line up, just so.

The only teeny problem with this lovely word, chiral, was that I could name but one other rhyme for it off the top of my head. (Besides spiral.) Did that stop me? Did that stop me from making it the REPEATING LINE?

No, it made me fling myself further into the Internet to see what other unmatchable words were out there.

See? MAD.

In truth, though, I've always been this way.

I admire other approaches to poetry, of course-- I adore a well-tempered line turn, a gorgeously formal word choice, an exquisitely correct rhyme---I really do. I just don't know how to write that way.

To me, poetry is an excuse to play with words as hard as I possibly can. A way to be madly in love with world, one cool fact at a time. A chance to gyre and gimble over the fundamental strangeness of my own hands.

Our hands, no matter how we rotate them, are chiraldid you know that? they’re mirror images that never meetLook at them! Look at them now! Don’t listen as I birle

(to cause a floating log to revolve by treading); I spiralon the surface of the Inter-bog, layered rich as peat;But my hands, no matter how I rotate them, are chiral

How did I find these facts? I was seeking rhymes more viral,to conflagrate—OMG—there is such a thing as gleet?Look at your hands! Look at them now! Don’t listen as I birle!

I blame Ogden Nash, who could precisely match eye roll-ing end rhymes; no unruly corners on his fitted sheet!Yet, my hands, no matter how I rotate them, are chiral

It’s like trying to tame the Jabberwock, most gyre-ralbut he’s one-off; no need for gamete to mate gameteLook at your hands! Look at those doozies! Don’t listen as I birle!

But if you must Google these words, seek out too: gyral(relating to the convolutions of the brain); how meet!Yet, hands, no matter how we rotate them, are chiral;Look at them! Look at them now! Don’t listen. I birle!

This poem would not have been possible without the encouragement of the rest of the Poetry Seven:Liz, Andi, Kelly, Laura, Tricia, and Tanita. Each of these poets has a triolet posted today, so go and drink deeply.

You may recognize some of the themes I talk about (and even the actual words!) as drawn from this blog---but then, I see this blog as a kind of notebook in which to gather my thoughts for both now and later. It turns out there is a cumulative effect of reading, writing, and believing.

Yeah, I had a picture of her work, but the post was taken down. My friend, Cass, found this other awesome picture of a vessel repaired with gold. I want to post it but I'm trying to track down permissions...

She's doing some other interesting work now, too. If you google her, you might find it. She's filling a house with re-made things.

Poetry ought to be taught in schools as a game. I mean it. All the way up to high school and beyond.

We start this way---with hand clap rhymes, or raps, or silly jingles which we make even sillier, or perhaps, (gasp!) off-color.

And then...the bell rings and recess is over and poetry gets made "a subject."

PHOOEY on that!

In contrast, there's an old Japanese game called renku* in which poets build a linked chain of haiku together on the spot. Apparently, in ancient times, it used to get quite rowdy---even a little PG-13 here and there, perhaps like some modern day bouts of Pictionary tend to do...

It was about pleasing the crowd with a sly twist on theme. Or throwing in a tricky word. Or slipping in an allusion that tickled your brain until you had time to look it up and say: Oh, right! I should've gotten that!

So, in the spirit of going back to poetry's roots, the Poetry Seven are at it again with a pickup game of renku. Liz and Andi threw us the idea a week ago, and presto! by today, we have something that weaves and jinks and laces us all together. We have a game. Play with us.

*Renku: alternating verses of three lines, two lines (could be 17, 14 syllables) with a linked theme and a shift. Below, the initials at the end of the lines indicate which of the poets wrote it. lps=Laura Purdie Salas, aj = Andi Jazmon (Sibley), tsh=Tricia Stohr-Hunt, kf=Kelly Fineman, sh=Sara Holmes, td=Tanita Davis, lgs=Liz Garton Scanlon

fall leaf in Aprilwearing last season's fashions--shunned by the green crowdlpsnature’s first green is goldprogeny emerge in flameaj

I very much agree - poetry is clapped out by hand and we jump rope to it on the playground, and then all the lightness and fun is taken away, as we sit and try to squeeze out what the poet was thinking, from between dry pages.

The orange truck moves from block to block. Sometimes, kids watch. A cat slinks by. During the next storm, we'll be glad of the branches trimmed to limits. But sometimes, I want to tear down the signs that go up overnight: No Parking. Tree Service. Monday 8-5.

Last day; last haikuA tree dies in sawdust smokeWho will I tell now?

---Sara Lewis Holmes

Thank you to all my friends who wrote beside me, and to those who commented here. You made April poetry.

::sigh:: I feel your pain. And yet, the whips that the branches become in a gale are not terribly useful either, except to create an eldritch screeching to a suitably spooky tale... I just cringe at the image of the sawdust smoke - like a smoking gun.

I got a little lost in my own poetry writing (and, of course, the Day Job took its toll), so I'm coming back to read through the second half of April...haiku style...through your eyes. I won't comment on all...just wanted you to know I was here, I read, I sighed.

Thank you for letting me know you came by, Mary Lee. I've loved what you've been posting, and it's been a month filled to bursting with good poetry and great friends. Much to sigh and smile about indeed.

So, right there. Your comment is a poem in its only right, holding up "eldritch screeching" to remind me of why those branches need to go. Poetry is such a gently and effective way to argue about what is best for this world. Let's keep at it. :)

Oh, April is speeding by! This weekend was gone in a flash, but that's because any time I have with the fabulous Loree Griffin Burns is always too short. Loree was in town for the USA Science and Engineering Fair, and I caught her presentation on Citizen Science. After writing about scientists who track trash and scientists who investigate honeybees, Loree decided to write about something powerful and simple: how any human being with alert senses and a willing heart can participate in the grand adventure of scientific discovery.

From listening to frog calls to hunting for lost ladybugs, each citizen scientist is asked only to be an expert in their own local community, and to observe and share the data he or she collects. It's a bit like Twitter science. (I hope Loree won't object to that description!) Just like Twitter has enabled millions of people to be on-the-spot reporters, observing and relaying what they see and hear, citizen science empowers kids, families, scout troops, classrooms, 4-H clubs, nearly anyone--- to take what they see and hear in the small square of their backyards and add that knowledge to the vast earth-wide pursuit of scientific knowledge.

Loree and I also talked about haiku----since she knew I was writing some for Poetry Month--and because she believes science and haiku have a lot in common. By focusing on the very small and the very particular, we gain access to the profound. She even recommended a poetry book to me that I can't wait to find: Seeds From a Birch Tree. For now, though, I'm paying attention only to what I heard and saw and learned from Loree today.

Ha! That's not really a joke. To Mike's horror, I told him the accompanying chords he was so lovingly playing for me were a distraction. I know. Awful. But I've always sung with a crowd, and for me, what I listened to was them, their voices, so I wouldn't screech off-course. I had no idea what to do when the only thing I could hear was a steady beat of chords. What I really needed was to SEE how my voice was supposed to compete with lovingly entwine with that.

To help, my husband laid down a guitar track in Garage Band. Now the measures click by and the sound waves pulse in and out. I can see it. It's helping.

But it's also incorruptible. Tying to sing with music is thrilling in a way that trying to jump on a spinning carousel is fun. I keep mis-timing my leaps and winding up in the dirt. But the lights! Those prancing steeds! The hypnotizing spell of the notes pouring out and up and down and around and around...

Which brings me to the poem for today. It's one that's I've shared on Poetry Friday before, back in 2009. But I love it for how it can gush without being mush. How everything spins and stays hyper-still at the same time. And it's so much about timing. Love often is.

A Love Song

by William Carlos Williams

What have I to say to youWhen we shall meet?Yet—I lie here thinking of you.

The stain of loveIs upon the world.Yellow, yellow, yellow,It eats into the leaves,Smears with saffronThe horned branches that leanHeavilyAgainst a smooth purple sky.

There is no light—Only a honey-thick stainThat drips from leaf to leafAnd limb to limbSpoiling the coloursOf the whole world.

Every morning on the back patio, my dog, paws delicately crossed, keeps watch like a stone lion for the neighbor's cat. At least, so she says. What really happens is that she leaps for the first available squirrel.

Statuesque caninedaily seeks SBS*To uncross my paws

*Single Brown Squirrel

Are you tired of haiku about my dog yet? I find her more interesting than flower blossoms.

Last night, my dear husband and his age-mellowed guitar took it upon themselves to help me begin to learn to sing a song. A single song. ONE.

We aren't going for "teaching me to sing." No. This is going to be like those beauty pageant contestants who create the illusion of vast talent by pouring tens of thousands of practice hours into three minutes. At least that's what Mike says. It can be done.

I have no idea what can be done. I don't even know what my real singing voice is because it's always throttled by fear. I do best when I'm surrounded by deep, true voices in church, voices that I can lean on and hide behind. Singing on my own is like being lost in a vast, foreign city---I can't read the signs, I only know I've made a wrong turn somewhere, and everyone is politely looking away from the panic in my eyes.

The song is Kasey Chamber's "If I Were You." The occasion is that I'm forty-nine today. Don't you think forty-nine is a fine age to finally learn to sing one song?

I wrote about the dog park earlier. One of the nicest things is how well the dogs get along, even with my grumpy pet, a miniature Australian shepherd. Naturally territorial and excessively protective, she makes me crazy at home. But at the dog park? She's Miss Social. She sniffs and greets and meets and generally schmoozes like she's at some fancy fund-raiser.

But nothing gives her more happiness than an escapee. Once, a small dog kept running off from its owner, and my dog kept zipping after it, grinning with glee when she blockaded his mad dashes for the grass on the far side. The other day, she had wild romp with a rescue dog from Mexico, which she was sure was making a break for his homeland, thousands of miles away.

I resist this advice. I want to follow my nose in choosing what to read, and in poetry, especially. But I notice that the poet simply said read BEYOND. She didn't recommend replacing pleasure. Only swimming out a few yards more.

I admit, I chose this one for the title: A Bird in Hand. It seemed to go so well with the theme of staying with what you know vs. reading beyond. When I began reading it, I thought I knew where the poem was going, but then the twisting happened. And I felt disconcerted and a little lost. But the images are solidly in my head, and I'm thinking about it, even now. I'll take any thoughts you throw out!

I think of something like Prufrock, which I would probably have never enjoyed if I hadn't been forced to study it in a class. Now it's a poem I love. But I'm afraid I'm with Diane about "A Bird in Hand." Not really sure what to say about it.

Running through the Capitol Building grounds is like being in a movie. No matter how many times I do it, it still feels a bit unreal, as if suddenly dancers are going to emerge and beginning singing about democracy. This is especially true after hours when the the plaza seems huge in its emptiness.

During the day, though, people are snapping pictures EVERYWHERE and it’s useless to dodge them. I try not to cross in front, of course, but when I cut across the main steps, I have to accept I’m going to be a blur in a few dozen photos. (Not a fast blur, mind you, although I do pick up my feet to get past in a hurry.) I wonder where my pixels end up, in digital land?

Using creative math, I've now caught up the post title (#16) with the actual date (April 16.) This was to cover some lapses in my daily output, some double posts, and some uncounted poetry Fridays.

In general, I like math. I think of it as another language, one that's fun to learn, and capable of saying some amazing things. But as much as I'm impressed by writers who adhere to strict word counts, with flashy online gadgets that tick over the daily output, I don't want to know such stuff. *

Let others count daysAll is relative to meAm I writing now?

----Sara Lewis Holmes

* I might do better if said gadgets plunked out M&Ms; five or so per line.

One of our favorite Saturday rituals is walking with the dog to Peregrine Coffee, near Eastern Market. When I go inside the shop, the dog, leashed outside with my husband, lets loose howls that no one wants to hear that early in the morning. She is happier when it's me, waiting on the bench, while my husband buys a mocha, a pour-through for himself, and usually, a bag of freshly-roasted beans. We are spoiled.

On the way home, we buy a Street Sense newspaper from the Cat in the Hat guy, who cheerfully hawks his own story "on page 8." I remember that I have promised to write, too, even on Saturdays.

But I also love deep, ancient church services filled with lovely theatrical tellings of our stories.

Especially when those stories are told in graveyards.

A church in New England that we belonged to once was lucky enough to have an adjacent cemetery, which meant a century or more of dead souls surrounded them. Easter sunrise service began at the oldest gravestone, where the story of Genesis was told in the complete darkness before dawn.

Then a torch was lit, and the congregation processed toward the church, stopping to tell more of the Easter story through the Old Testament and into the New, until they reached the sanctuary, where the lights there were thrown on, and everyone marched in, singing and lit from within.

It was pretty spectacular. As are pink jellybeans, little boys in Easter suits, eggs hidden within easy reach, and being part of a story that goes so far back that you need lots of people tell it.

I was fortunate enough to be in the front row of a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today at Arlington National Cemetery. I'm speechless at the hours that went into the perfection of those few minutes. Also, I want the voice of the sergeant-who-must-be-obeyed; when he instructed the crowd to stay standing and quiet, there was nary a cell phone beep or a whispered comment. I need him to ride herd on SO many places.

But the best was when the honor guard marched by so closely that I could count the moles on their cheeks. The unknown soldier was suddenly known. It was him and him and her and him and her...

Known

hat brims slant; pitched roofsone like one like one like oneunderneath, all eyes

I have a weird reaction to soldiers in uniform; I want to hug them all (and they will be deeply weirded out by this) because I see them and then, THEY ARE REAL. All of them. Every single one, him, her, him. And then the places which were only names become real. I SO get what you're saying. I so, so, SO get that.

I woke up today, glad to be home from a week of travel, and was suddenly aware it was Poetry Friday. No need to panic. My iPhone held this photo of a sculpture from the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, where we spent an hour trying to understand the questions modern art flings at us. Not nearly enough time, of course.

But I have you guys, and this day of poetry, and lots of time now to think about it all. Happy Poetry Friday!

I love modern art, but I also get angry at it. And laugh at it. I like the way it requires you to do something other than stand there and oooh and ahhh. Although, there was some ooohing and ahhing at some modern pieces in this museum---mostly, this incredible sky-high ladder built from two ash trees. I guess for me, I like the artist to show evidence of craft. I don't like it when I as the viewer have to do ALL the heavy lifting.

It was my husband's birthday this past week. We celebrated aboard a military jet, with a group of wonderful folks singing to him in Hebrew, a first for him. (We were escorting Israeli guests around the U.S. on an adventure I can hardly believe was real now that we're back home.) But I didn't get to cook for him, so tonight, I made up for it. Almost.

coffee-rubbed rib-eyeshomemade coleslaw and cold beerCake: sweet IOU

Also, last night, we went to see Eugene O'Neil's A Long Day's Journey into Night, which isn't for the faint-hearted. We nearly forgot we had tickets; I remembered over dinner, and we had to scramble to make curtain. But it was completely worth the rush and bother. Wow.

Thanks for sharing...I just this weekend finished reading "Journey" and today watched (on my laptop--not optimal) a performance with Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey and Peter Gallagher. Definitely not for the faint of heart--can't imagine seeing it live!

I can usually spot who's going to bail at intermission. People come clueless, and I do, too sometimes--- on purpose, so I'll get the full impact without too much baggage. But I wonder how many people think of plays as light entertainment instead of the explosive literature they really are. Even the "fun" ones can be live wires.